The present invention is generally related to telecommunications and more particularly to the integration of interactive voice response (IVR) system with mobile applications.
The IVR system typically interacts with a calling party over the telephone network through dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) of DTMF signaling in the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
IVR systems in particular have allowed telephone service providers to efficiently host call centers for business customers. An IVR system may be used to dispense or collect information from callers, including authentication and authorizing callers, pre-classifying calls, thus allowing service representatives to specialize in particular areas, cutting down on the need for live call center representatives to receive and route calls properly. In many scenarios, the entire call may take place over the IVR system, without the need for interaction with a service representative.
However, though these IVR systems may improve efficiency for the employees of the service provider, these systems are often frustrating for the user who may become stranded or confused in the IVR system. The user may not know how to return to the previous menu after choosing the wrong menu, or the user may not know how to replay a menu after missing a choice. Moreover, the voice menu may seem endless to the calling party because the calling party has no idea at what point he or she will reach a service representative or accomplish the intended objective. Therefore, there is a need for systems and method that address these and/or other perceived shortcomings of the prior art.
The use of Voice response systems or units (VRU) has become a part of everyday life for a long time now for most people and is used by call centers for most companies including banks, financial institutions, hotels and various service oriented companies. Most, if not all, VRUs present the user with a series of “voice menus” and prompt the user to select an option or say some pre-defined text in order to proceed to the next step. There could be several steps including the need to authenticate the user for transaction based voice response systems. In many VRUs, the user has to wait to hear all the options before they can proceed to the next step(s). This is far more time consuming than navigating a list of similar options presented on an input screen on the web. Moreover, the user may not remember the options correctly after having to wait to hear all of the options.